2023 Learning Goals Check-In

It’s nearly 3/4th of the way through 2023, so I thought I might go ahead and check in on some of the learning goals I made for this last year.

Learn a Functional Programming Language

I want to learn an FP language to challenge myself and expand general programming knowledge by learning a new paradigm. Clojure interests me the most.

I have not done this. Well, I did try Clojure with bit, followed some documentation and tutorials and played around in the REPL. I do think it’s really cool, I just haven’t made the time to properly learn it or a build a project it in.

But I would still like to finish a small project in ClojureScript before the end of the year.

System Level Programming

I would like to learn a bit more about lower level programming languages for a similar reason as to learning an FP language, but also to learn more about how programming works under the hood.

Same story as learning Clojure. I have played around a bit in C but have not done anything serious in it. Hopefully I will get to this year, the second half of this year I would like to try working own programming projects at bit more, if I can find balance between that and work and all the other stuff going on in my life.

Game Development

I have always been interested in game development. I feel like a lot of people’s first interest in programming starts off with wanting to know how their favorite games are made, or at least that’s where I started off. Either that or their interest in making a shit load of money.

So did not do any gave development this year at all, and I don’t think I will. Maybe if I get really into C I would like try developing a game in it, but game dev is not really on my radar this year anymore, maybe next year.

I also wanted to try to make a Minecraft Forge mod in either Java or Kotlin (probably Kotlin unless the support for it is bad). But I have no idea when I’ll get to that.

If I do get into any sort of game development this year, it would likely be a Minecraft Forge mod. I still have some ideas and think it would be a really fun thing to tackle, but can’t guarantee I will make time for it this year. I would still love to develop it in Kotlin to get more experience in the language.

Self-Hosting

I want to setup a home server and begin self hosting more services.

This has been the my main activity this year. I started off with a used ThinkCentre Mini PC I got from eBay, installed Debian and Docker on it, and then down the rabbit whole I went self hosting all the things. A month after that I upgraded to a M720s ThinkCentre SSF, which is still my current server.

I’ve learned a ton about Docker and Linux doing this, and am currently self-hosting uses many services like Jellyfin, Deluge, Syncthing, Gitea and more.

This hobby has really deepened my interesting in Linux System Administration and have been working my way through The Debian Administrator’s Handbook the second half of this year.

Hardware / PC Building

I definitely want to build a PC this year.

So did not do that. And probably will not do that this year or not even the next. But I did learn a lot more about computer hardware, specifically laptop hardware. I’m comfortable now with opening a laptop and doing upgrades and repairs, even the more daunting ones like upgrading the display on my ThinkPads.

I want to continuing learning more about hardware and computer repair, trying more ambitious projects on my machines and eventually get deeper into electronics.

As for building my own PC, I honestly I just don’t have a need for building a powerful workstation right now, so I can’t justify the cost/time commitment. I’m not a big gamer anymore, I don’t do anything crazy like using CAD software or 4k video editing, and spend most of my time in Firefox or the terminal nowadays. Used office equipment as been serving me well, and it is extremely satisfying for me to be able to re-purpose, upgrade, and repair it.

So one day I’ll get to building my own PC from scratch. Just not right now.

Privacy and Security

I want to learn more about and take my internet privacy and security more seriously this year.

This has definitely been a primary focus of mine this year. My attitudes regarding digital privacy and security have shifted significantly see this year. Not to say that before this year I thought it didn’t matter, if you told me a year ago that privacy and security in the digital age was important I’d likely agree. But you could say I was blissfully ignorant and unaware to the extent at which our personal data is collected, used for profit, and leaked, as well how vulnerable I was digitally and many people are.

So this year I learned a lot about privacy and security, I would like to expand upon this more in future blog posts.